fridaythe13thfandomcom-20200223-history
Pamela Voorhees
Pamela Voorhees (1930 - June 13, 1979), more commonly known simply as Mrs. Voorhees, is the secondary antagonist of the franchise, and the hidden main antagonist of the first film. Biography Pamela Voorhees was the mother of the unstoppable killing machine known as Jason Voorhees. In 1946, Pamela was a young and pregnant newlywed living in a trailer in Cadiz, Ohio with her abusive husband Elias Voorhees. Pamela believed that she could actually hear the thoughts of her unborn child instructing her towards committing acts of violence. Whether this was merely an aspect of a deep-rooted psychosis or a reflection of some supernatural manipulation is unknown. In September of that year, after suffering another in a long series of beatings perpetuated by her husband, Pamela heeded the voice inside her that told her to "kill". Her husband, Elias left sometime after the birth of Jason, he left his wife and child behind because he could not handle Pamela's slightly unbalanced obsession with her son. Without a husband or a home, Pamela felt lost adrift. She drove across the country until she reached the lakeside community of Crystal Lake. She felt God had called her to this place and she purchased a home. She got a job working as a short-fry cook at a local diner. On Friday, June 13, 1946, Pam met David and Louise Christy. The Christys told her that they were reopening a campground out near the lake and asked her to work for them cooking for seventy-five children over the summer season. On the day that Pam accepted the job, she went into labor. Her son Jason was born with severe physical deformities, but a mother's love blinded Pamela who felt that he was "perfect". In June of 1957, Pam was working at Crystal Lake when she received news about her son. Rushing home, she learned from her nanny Mrs. Cunningham that Jason had been killing and mutilating small kittens. Rather than admonishing the boy's actions however, she instead cradled him, telling him that she will always protect him. She did decide however, that she would have to leave her job in order to keep an eye on Jason. Dave Christy didn't want to see Pamela go, so he invited her to bring Jason to live at the campground so that she could always keep an eye on him. Later that year, eleven-year-old Jason Voorhees drowned in Crystal Lake and the "death" of her child drove the overprotective Pamela insane. The camp counselors charged with keeping an eye on him were off making love in the woods. Stricken with grief, Pamela took some time away from the camp. In 1958, she begged the Christys for the chance to work at the camp again. Her motivation behind this is unclear, but it may have been sparked by the knowledge that the two negligent counselors who allowed her son to drown, Barry and Claudette, were once again working at Camp Crystal Lake. Pamela avenged her son's death against two camp counselors whom she found copulating inside of a cabin. Pamela believed that these two reflected the sinful nature of all whose actions allowed her son to die. In 1979, she returned to Camp Crystal Lake and killed several more counselors. She picked up a young camp counselor named Annie in her jeep and told her the story of her life before slaughtering her. She also killed the campground manager, Steve Christy, the son of David and Louise Christy. One woman survived the massacre, Alice Hardy. Pam and Alice fought one another on the shore of Crystal Lake and Alice beheaded Pamela with her own machete. Jason Voorhees, still alive and living in the woods nearby, witnessed his mother's death and began a bloody crusade of vengeance against anyone who dared to trespass on his territory. He collected his mother's head and placed it on a shrine in his own cabin. When Jason was in pursuit of Ginny Field, Ginny came upon Pamela's shrine and used child psychology in a desperate gamble to save her own life. She pulled her hair back, donned Pamela's dirty sweater and began speaking to Jason in an authoritative voice. The trick worked momentarily and Jason believed that he was seeing the image of his dead mother speaking back to him. Years later, Freddy Krueger manifested himself as Mrs. Voorhees and appeared to Jason in Hell. She urged him to rise up and kill again, emphasizing that he needed to go to Elm Street to deal with some troublemakers. Jason was resurrected from Hell and did as he believed his mother was instructing him to do. When Jason's rampage grew out of control, Freddy appeared as Mrs. Voorhees again in a dream, admonishing Jason as "a dog that doesn't know when to stop eating". Freddy further antagonized Jason by making it appear as if he was holding his mother's severed head in front of him. Friday The 13th: The Game Pamela Voorhees reprises her primary role in the franchise as the secondary antagonist of the 2017 game, appearing as her decapitated head in Jason's shack, and as a voice that only Jason hears, spurring him on to murder the counselors. Her sweater, which is required to kill Jason, can be worn by any female counselor, though Pamela's voice will immediately alert Jason to their presence upon arrival, unless the counselor entering the shack has Jason's mask in their inventory. Utilizing her sweater will cause the female counselor (this will not work with a male) wearing it to briefly stun Jason by impersonating Pamela. There are also 20 cassette tapes that randomly appear on the map, featuring Pamela having a discussion with the police about Jason's drowning. Throughout the tapes, Pamela becomes gradually more unhinged about wanting to find Jason. One tape contains a conversation between Pamela and Tommy Jarvis' father, the latter showing sympathy for the former's loss. These tapes also reveal that Pamela was impregnated with Jason when she was raped by an unknown man, and that she married Elias for protection (only in this game's continuity). Between the nineteenth and twentieth tape, Pamela, after having a fit of rage, confessed that she had murdered Elias because he was abusing her and Jason, and that he had told her to kill him. Pamela, furious at the police for doubting his capability due to Jason's deformities, storms out of the police station to find Jason herself. After the detective warns her that she could get hurt, Pamela defies his warning and declares that Camp Crystal Lake "now has a death curse" before leaving. The police decide that Pamela is too unstable to say anything truthful and lets her leave. It's possible that Pamela may become a playable killer in the game, though the developers admit that they would have to modify gameplay mechanics greatly to achieve this, and would prefer to focus on more important features of the game before considering Pamela's implementation. Alternate Versions In the comic Jason vs. Leatherface, Pamela appears as Doris and is shown murdering Elias with a machete. This comic is not considered canon for these and other reasons. In the novel Friday the 13th: Mother's Day, Pamela, possessing her severed head, led hunter Joe Travers to Jason's hockey mask, which led him to be possessed by Jason's spirit. Pamela's hold was broken when Carly MacDonnell shot the head to pieces. This novel is a part of the Crystal Lake Books series, which makes the plot of Freddy vs. Jason impossible. Victims As Doris Voorhees: Trivia *In The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, there's a lighthouse with a basement. During one of the Dark Brotherhood Quests, you get access to the basement where the player finds a decapitated head in a state of decay sitting on a plate called "Mother's Head", which is a reference to Pamela Voorhees, since she was decapitated and put in a shrine. *Even though she was killed in the first film, Pamela is the secondary antagonist of the series, as a posthumous character that motivates Jason to kill. *Alice Hardy was the killer of Pamela, which is ironic, due to the fact that Alice was the first victim of Jason Voorhees. *As a factual error in the original film, Pamela's hands can be seen clutching and making fists in the air. In reality, this would not happen as the brain is disconnected so no action such as this can be possible, and would instead result in twitching. *It is unknown whether Pamela speaking to Jason in the game is due to her spirit communicating with him, or if Jason is only hearing her voice in his head. *In one of the tapes in the game, Pamela mentions that she considered naming Jason "Joshua." This is a nod to when the game was originally a homage to the franchise named Summer Camp: Vol. 1, as that was the name of Jason's parody character, before the rights to use Friday the 13th's setting, story and characters were granted to Gun Media, the team of developers who worked on the game. *Betsy Palmer was asked to reprise her role as Pamela Voorhees for Freddy vs. Jason film but turned the part down after she read the script. *Betsy Palmer, due to her role as Mrs. Voorhees, made her even more famous. Originally, however, she starred in the original Friday the 13th because she needed money for a new car and called the script a "piece of shit". However in later years before her death in 2015, she was more respected in her role as the character. *Betsy Palmer was interviewed about the role in the documentaries, "His Name Was Jason" (2009) and "Return To Crystal Lake" (2003). *The character of Pamela Voorhees was created by director Sean S. Cunningham and writers Victor Miller and Ron *Actress Nana Visitor played the role of Mrs. Voorhees in the 2009 Friday the 13th reboot directed by Marcus Nispel. The character's role in this film was greatly truncated from the original and she only appears in the beginning of the film moments before she is decapitated in front of her son Jason. *Many of the "prowler" scenes from Friday the 13th were actually played by stunt man and special effects assistant Taso Stavrakis. It is Taso driving the jeep in the beginning of the film with Robbi Morgan (Annie) and it is he who slices Annie's throat with the hunting knife. In the uncut version of the film, Pamela's hands are seen groping about in front of the camera after Alice beheads her. These are actually Taso's hands. It has become a joke among the crew members that Pamela Voorhees has exceptionally hairy hands. *In Friday the 13th, Pamela is identified only as Mrs. Voorhees. Her first name is not revealed until Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter where her name is seen on her grave. *The dates of birth/death of Pamela Voorhees is indicated on her tombstone in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. *Freddy Krueger once used his powers to assume the form of Mrs. Voorhees as part of a ploy to fool Jason. *Actress Kathleen Garrett provided voice samples for the character of Pamela Voorhees in the teaser trailer for the 2009 reboot of Friday the 13th. She is credited in the film as voice artist. See also *Pamela Voorhees (reboot timeline) *Pamela Voorhees in Villains Wikia Appearances Films *''Friday the 13th'' (1980) *''Friday the 13th Part 2'' (1981) (decapitated head, hallucinations and flashbacks) *''Friday the 13th Part III'' (1982) (hallucinations) *''Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter'' (1984) (flashbacks and tombstone) *''Freddy vs. Jason'' (2003) (hallucinations) *''Friday the 13th (2009)'' (corpse and flashbacks) *''Never Hike Alone: A Friday the 13th Fan Film'' (2017) (corpse) *''Jason Rising: A Friday the 13th Fan Film'' (undead) Comics *''Jason vs. Leatherface'' (1995) (flashbacks as Doris Voorhees, non-canonical) *''Jason X Special'' (2005) *''Friday the 13th: Jason vs. Jason X'' (2006) (flashbacks) *''Friday the 13th (comic)'' (2006–2007) (flashbacks) *''Friday the 13th: Pamela's Tale'' (2007) *''Friday the 13th: How I Spent My Summer Vacation'' (2007) (flashbacks and tombstone) *''Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash'' (2007–2008) (hallucinations) *''Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors'' (2009) (hallucinations) Novels *''Friday the 13th (novel)'' (1987) *''Friday the 13th Part 2 (novel)'' (1988) (corpse and hallucinations) *''Friday the 13th Part III (Simon Hawke novel)'' (1988) (hallucinations) *''Friday the 13th: Mother's Day'' (1994) (non-canonical) *''Freddy vs. Jason (novel)'' (2003) (hallucinations) *''Jason X: Death Moon'' (2005) (hologram) Games * Friday the 13th: The Game ''(2017) ''(decapitated head and voice) References Category:Characters Category:Characters in Friday the 13th Category:Characters in Friday the 13th: Pamela's Tale Category:Characters in Friday the 13th: Carnival of Maniacs Category:Characters in Jason vs. Leatherface Category:Characters in Freddy vs. Jason Category:Characters in Friday the 13th Part 2 Category:Villains Category:Deceased Category:Mothers Category:Female villains Category:Amputated Category:Main antagonist Category:Characters in Friday the 13th: The Game Category:Killers Category:Slashers Category:Deceased villains Category:Voorhees Family Category:Secondary antagonist Category:Deceased Females Category:Females Category:Female Characters Category:Decapitated Category:Deceased characters Category:Deceased females Category:Antagonists Category:Main antagonists Category:Characters in Friday the 13th Part III Category:Characters in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter Category:Characters in Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash Category:Characters in Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors Category:Seeker of Vengeance Category:Evil Category:Adults